So many writers distrust words, and so many artists distrust images and ideas that they turn the stuff of their material against itself. As the protagonist of The Moviegoer says, ‘the only sign is that all signs in the world make no difference.’ Of course, one shouldn't look to Binx Boller as a profound philosopher. He is a plaything of the author, a character made of words, yet one who recognizes that much thought, vocalization, and action is a responsive twitch. The characters herein are celluloid thin, and in a way, the book is a play on movies, but it's equally a playful story about plays: five acts with scenes, a ‘catastrophe’ at the narrative decline. Yes. We are in the territory of irony and parody, reflexiveness and wordplay.

A random assemblage of petrified objects, ‘immured’ in glass - tufted Bohemian slippers and gold-encrusted crystal’, medals, ambrotypes of amberized totems of an imagined southern history – serve as some of those signs, as do fragments of places, urban detail or swampy metonyms of festering angst. Well, if you want the almost certain destiny of becoming parodied too in Percy’s world, you could point out the iconography is polysemic too of the histories that stand in for the past, the fictions that walk away from the world to serve as memory, the whole constituting part of the process that constructs such beautiful and monstrous effigies as Aunt Emily, Jules and Sam. Rhett Butler is just as real a personage here as these.

Those random totems are placed on the mezzanine which is like a theatre balcony, from which Kate and Binx could, if they were bothered, observe the ritualized actions of the participants at the dining table below. Binx is bored by the repetition of the world, the play, and can take part fluently but has no motivation to observe or be interested; Kate’s fragmented emotional state counterpoints the smoothness of the cyclic activity below, the actors become the characters, located in time and space. The latter are someones somewhere, the former pair are no ones nowhere: the two scenes are portrayed as one whole scene for the reader, two theatres of the mind.

Binx’s bathetic realization that almost ‘everyone is dead’ relates to his dread of ‘everydayness’, the quotidian cycling of mummers, masks, actors in a dreary landscape, itself dead whether it be the green sad skies or the stinking swamps, or the internalized landscape of bowel gas. Both he and Kate are ‘searching’ to escape in their own ways. Percy makes their various attempts absurd and pathetic, also offensive. Nevertheless, he allows, since he controls their thoughts, them to think ideas from an elementary primer on existentialism. Binx: “Everydayness is the enemy. No search is possible…Only once in my life was the grip of everydayness broken: when I lay bleeding in a ditch.” (referring to his being shot in the war, and regulation six of the primer, that only suffering is real, and that which does not destroy us makes us stronger etc.). Kate: “Losing hope is not so bad: There’s something worse: losing hope and hiding it from yourself.” (Kierkegaard couldn’t have put it better). Binx, of the embarrassing young romantic whom he met on the bus: “He is a moviegoer, though of course he does not go to the movies.” (this one of Percy’s little jokes). Kate on the one mistake that ruins a life, “not something wrong, but a miscalculation” (cf modernist Catholic existential doctrines on Sin).

Binx is no more or less a character than any other literary figure. Aunt Emily is described so heavily, albeit in one direction, that she could walk fully born into any filmic, theatrical, novelistic drawing room in the ol’ south and fit perfectly; even Henry James could use her. So too, the black butler, Mercer, who could usher people in and out while muttering implications of his offstage identity, or any of the burlesques, the salespeople, the hateful avuncular Sam with his quasiliberal books about racial tolerance. Percy can and does use Binx, I feel sure, as his swordsman in puncturing so many fabrics of nonsense and hypocrisy. In particular, his reactions to the “niceness’ of those talkers on the daily broadcast “This I believe” , with their endless repetition of worn out sentimental slogans, are hilarious. The cloak of niceness that smothers the world of people who will not or cannot admit they are in despair does need removing. Along with “niceness” and good ol’ decency and manners and manliness, womanliness too, the supremacy of the white southern gentility, etc etc, should go, implied throughout, all the dead words, language use, and the ornate shrillness of amateur philosophers, literati, romantics and theosophists. At least, Binx knows, liberal ranters and conservative ranters, haters both, are alive. It’s for the author, or, more properly, the reader to realize that Binx’s problem is that he doesn’t, can’t, understand that the dead are alive too.

It’s a novel of place. The genus loci of Binx’s fear and love is psychologically representative of totemic attachment to place as centre of the soul, but also, of course, a parody on the new romanticism of ‘spirit of place’. It is never, from the authorial point of view, the place’s fault, but the head that perceives it. There’s nothing wrong with Chicago, any more than New Orleans, just something awry in the neurosis of perception. Anyway, as Philip Larkin wisely put it, “Nothing, like something, happens anywhere”. A place is constructed every bit as much as a history, and every bit as much as a story and a mind. It’s Percy standing back who makes clear the mechanism of how a place becomes meaningful to someone: the notion of certification which is Binx’s peculiar concept of a place receiving a stamp of reality after he has seen it represented filmically. Equally, it’s Percy whose immense surreal depictions of cavalcades and parades meld everything together in a runny gelid fluidity.

Percy’s beautiful, stunning imagery gives the novel its filminess at a different level. There are so many wonderful evocations of a fleeting presence of place with all its sensuous spectrum you’d wonder why can’t Binx too see that heaven is indeed on earth. Why must he be forever chasing his verticals and horizontals trying to balance into being a metaphisical system as neat as a spreadsheet. Why would anyone be like this, forever chasing their heads around themselves, being ‘on a search’, ‘looking for an answer’? Sometimes, it’s a novelist who is less than happy with a world made out of words who may use them to hint at a world that doesn’t need an answer.

It’s evident from reading Percy that he has a fine old time ridiculing pretension. There is that much darker side to him too. The death of young children from ‘natural’ causes, in this novel and elsewhere, social injustice, war, ordinary common misery and the hell people give each other. The intensely depersonalized medical imagery (Percy was a doctor) applied to the dying of children is heart breaking. The immense weight of a more general human suffering beneath various febrile flashes of façade pulls down the lightness of tone. In particular, Percy is saddened by the contemporary search he sees for selfish happiness, fulfilment, a state of mind where borders are tight and one’s benefits are a sign of God’s approval; he evokes the torpor and boredom and acidie that accompany unto death such a mistaken waste of life. His sadness is both gentle and warm and loving. He maintains his lightness, I suppose his love, to understand that he too is human and nowhere near anywhere other than where humanity is, patiently allows him to tolerate the pains and faults of others because he knows he owns them all too. He gives Binx some lines which don’t suggest an ending. Only stories and plays and films have happy endings. Binx could after all be anyone, the greatest glimmer of realization of all:

There is only one thing I can do: listen to people, see how they stick themselves into the world, hand them along a ways in their dark journey and be handed along, and for good and selfish reasons.

Maybe the best search or only search worth doing is when all you are doing is doing, and unaware that the search is going on. I like to daydream that Kate and Binx, by having reached the endpoint of pretending, feel safe and secure enough with each other’s total vulnerability and fear to be able to enter love. There is one person in the novel, Binx’s mother, with what he describes as a marvellous and “sure instinct for the ordinary”, who does, I feel, represent the best of humanity, and the most of it.

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I simply couldn't get through this book. Percy has crafted a detailed and interesting setting, along with a meandering narrator/main character.

However, truth be told, my thoughts on this are similar to those I have about books like Emma. That is to say, why should I care if rich idiots are sad about their affluent lifestyle which is devoid of any socio-economic or real danger?

Oh, the poor rich white middle-aged depressed man, who earns a significant amount of money, is shockingly racist and sexist, and spends all his time scheming to get his secretaries into bed.

Seriously, get a life. It seems that such characters and their problems are so far removed from the real world and the struggles that most people face. It's hard to feel any genuine empathy or interest in their self-centered dramas. The book fails to engage me on a deeper level and leaves me wondering what the point of it all is.

This book had an immediate effect on me, making me smile. Understated humor, for me, is the casual and humorous way a character in a book thinks, talks, or goes about life. It's not about loud guffaws or uncontrolled snorts or immature giggles. It's just a nice, gentle smile that warms your soul. If someone were watching you, they might notice just a slight upturn at the corners of your lips or a glint in your eyes, or maybe they would notice nothing at all.

At first glance, our protagonist Binx seems to be a bit of a serial womanizer. He pays attention to even the smallest details about women and imagines his interactions with them. Or perhaps he would recall a woman from his past.

However, I got a bit lost along the way. I don't think it's the author's fault; I just lost interest in what was happening. Then, close to the end, there is a trip north to Chicago that once again brings a smile or two as a result of how Binx from New Orleans describes Chicago. Now, I should say that I don't think this book is primarily a comedy unless you think stumbling through life is funny.

If you've seen a movie that is mostly dialogue with little or no action, you get the idea of what this book is like. It wouldn't be fair to call it dull, but who says we have to be fair? I need to read this book again, but a second reading is something I rarely undertake. But I won't swap this book right away just to keep that option open.

Can a house take on the forlorn character of the actor in the story?

The closer you get to the lake, the more expensive the houses are. Already the bungalows and duplexes and tiny ranch houses are behind me. Here are the fifty and sixty thousand dollar homes, fairly big moderns with dagger plants and Australian pines planted in brick boxes, and reproductions of French provincials and Louisiana colonials. The swimming pools steam like sleeping geysers. Those houses look handsome in the sunlight; they please me with their pretty colors, their perfect lawns, and their clean airy garages. But I have noticed that at this hour of dawn, they are forlorn. A sadness settles over them like a fog from the lake.

I will give it three stars, but one star is for the potential the book has to one day interest me and for the understated humor. But today, I'm not much interested. Again, I don't blame the author. But it took me such a long time to read this book. No offense intended, Walker Percy.

Addendum after second reading:
I have just finished listening to this book in the audible format, and it pretty clearly remains a three-star book for me. Not a strong three stars, but three stars nevertheless.
This is resolutely a New Orleans book for those people who like that setting. Not to seem too snooty, but I have never found southern Louisiana people in books particularly intriguing.
I continue to have a hard time figuring out exactly what this book is all about. I did copy a few paragraphs out of the book in several notes that seem to be statements about life and how to live it. So I guess this is a story of the experience of one particular guy as he moves through life. He is in his 20s and concludes the book by getting married.

I want to say, Camus meets Wallace Stegner, maybe? The existentialist flux of affable (and only mildly racist) Southern gent Binx Bolling is so much warmer and more likable than that of his Francophone counterpart. Bolling is the bearer of a certain tradition of, as his fiery aunt puts it,

a certain quality of spirit, a gaiety, a sense of duty, a nobility worn lightly, a sweetness, a gentleness with women - the only good things the South ever had and the only things that really matter in life

While not lionising this tradition, Percy doesn't exactly attempt to skewer it. Instead, his protagonist seems entirely value-neutral, and his goals in life amount to no more than making money, romancing his pretty young secretaries, and enjoying the movies.

Behind this façade, though, there is no nihilism. Bolling is transfixed: \\"solitary and in wonder, wondering day and night, never a moment without wonder\\". Having been through the Korean War (the traumatic experiences therein are hinted at but not explicit), he becomes transfixed by the idea of discovering meaning - whether in religion (something he distances, though a religious motif with shades of Kierkegaard runs through the novel), some kind of Spinozan naturalism (more on that later), or in the ephemera of pop culture (specifically film), his loving consumption of which forms a makeshift onotology of urban living.

What makes reading this novel so special is the richness and complexity of its language. Percy evokes a sun-drenched Gulf coast lined with verdant suburbs, teeming bayous and secluded beaches. His hero seeks enlightenment and meaning, a goal in which he is ultimately unsuccessful (no journey down the path of nihilism ever leads to higher ground). But his happy-go-lucky nature, and his pleasure taken from life, allows him to still experience meaning and escape the everpresent \\"malaise\\" cast by modern life. Asea among hysterical, avaricious and flaky family members (whose various exigencies add little to the novel, and do not enter this review), Bolling manages to wrest Homeric glory out of the jaws of uniquely modern ennui.

The novel delves deep into the psyche of its protagonist, exploring his inner turmoil and his search for something more in life. It is a story that is both relatable and thought-provoking, making it a must-read for anyone interested in existentialism, Southern literature, or simply a good story.

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For most of the time I was reading this, I wasn't sure I liked it.

The conjuring of a sense of place and atmosphere was quite fine. The sleek prose was nice, although the author seemed at times far too proud of himself for having gone to medical school and tosses around medical jargon rather unnecessarily and show-offishly. (Walker Percy and I are alumni of the same med school, which is one of the things that drew me to pick up this book in the first place.)

Some of the characters are very well drawn (e.g., Aunt Emily, who is given an absolutely wonderful speech at the end), others less so (e.g., Sharon, who is only shown to us through the lens of the protagonist's emotionally detached and patronizing lust and therefore never becomes more than a highly polished surface despite occupying a lot of space in the novel).

The protagonist's emotional immaturity irritated me (the protagonist is a 29-year-old man but seemed to me to act younger), as did the dated sexual and racial politics of the book as a whole (the book was published in 1961, and while it's modern in some ways -- the frankness and authenticity with which it treats bodily functions and mental health, for example -- it's far from modern in others).

Still, the book started to grow on me in the penultimate quarter, where we see the main character visit his half-siblings and we finally start to see him show a bit of heart, especially in his bond with his younger half-brother Lonnie. Then the final quarter of the book happened, and I was surprised to find that that was very very very good. I found myself underlining passage after passage, page after page, something I had not done for the first 80% of the book.

Really, it's hardly an exaggeration to say that the entire heart of the book -- the entire plot, the entire emotional core of it -- is contained in that last 20%. The journey to get there was frustrating, but it paid off in the end. It was as if the author had been carefully laying the groundwork throughout the book, only to reveal the true depth and beauty of the story in those final pages. It made me realize that sometimes, even when a book starts off slow or seems unappealing, it can still have the power to surprise and move us if we're willing to stick with it.

Unsympathetic characters are those who lack the ability to show compassion or understanding. They often come across as cold and distant, making it difficult for readers to connect with them. Pretentious characters, on the other hand, are those who try to appear more important or intelligent than they really are. They use big words and complex sentences, but their ideas are often shallow and unoriginal. Profane characters are those who use vulgar or offensive language, which can be off-putting to some readers.

When these types of characters are doing unimportant things but talking as if what they say is extraordinarily profound, it can make for a dull and pretentious book. The lack of a plot only adds to the boredom, as there is nothing to keep the reader engaged. Despite the occasional well-constructed string of words, the overall effect is one of pretentiousness and shallowness.

To the 5-star reviewers who must think I don't "get it": I do get it. I understand the literary devices and techniques that the author is using. I just don't think that they are enough to make up for the lack of a compelling story and interesting characters. In my opinion, a book should be more than just a collection of beautiful words. It should have a heart and a soul, and it should make the reader feel something. This book fails to do that, and for that reason, it's just not worth getting.

This is an utterly fantastic book. The writing style is lush, sensuous, and philosophical - truly beautiful.

I noticed from the numerous reviews by Goodreads participants that the reaction to this novel is highly polarized. This strikes me as quite interesting. One reviewer mentioned that it no longer had a significant impact on him as his existential days were over. I guess mine aren't, although unlike Binx Bolling in "The Moviegoer," I don't spend my days grappling with malaise while fondling my secretaries. Perhaps that's because I don't have any secretaries.

In the novel, although Binx turns 30, which seems a young age to me, he is a war veteran. And despite the fact that his physical wound appears only briefly, it seems to me that his war experience leads him to construct the ideas that form his "search," which is now horizontal rather than vertical. It was while he was lying in a ditch, wounded and perhaps dying, that he watched a dung beetle going about its business. This reminds me a great deal of that excellent story by Ambrose Bierce, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," where the man about to be hanged suddenly has "full possession of his physical senses" and can see, from the bridge, spiders and their webs, as well as the veining of each leaf, from miles away. Being at the point of death must be a defining moment - and Binx Bolling is no adolescent Holden Caulfield, fighting against the phonies. Binx's search for "something" is similar, but more despairing and more beautiful.

I love this quote: "Where there is a chance of gain, there is also a chance of loss. Whenever one courts great happiness, one also risks malaise." How well I can relate. Moments of pure happiness and greatness are so fleeting - and what do you return to afterwards? Everydayness. "Gelid amiability." At one point, Binx recalls driving to the Gulf Coast with one of his girls, Marcia, with high hopes - but the drive became suffocating, and their "cheeks ached from smiling." Binx says that he "longed to stop the car and bang my head against the curb." I can't be the only one who understands what he means and how exhausting it is to pretend.

The movie-going rituals and Binx's philosophies about movie-going are thought-provoking. Since the novel weaves so many Catholic motifs throughout (the culminating action occurs on Ash Wednesday), it's not a stretch to realize that entering a darkened theater to watch a movie that validates existence is like going to church. The idea that cities and people aren't fully real until they are "certified" on film seems very much a modern concept, or at least modern enough that the novel's ideas aren't so dated after all.

Walker's writing really impresses me. Here's Binx on his newest secretary, Sharon Kincaid: "She is a good-sized girl, at least five feet six and a hundred and thirty-five pounds - as big as a majorette - and her face is a little too short and pert, like one of those Renoir girls, and her eyes a little too yellow. Yet she has the most fearful soap-clean good looks. Her bottom is so beautiful that once as she crossed the room to the cooler I felt my eyes smart with tears of gratitude."

There is so much in this book - and a lot that I don't quite understand - that I will have to re-read it. I sense the echoes of Joyce, Dostoyevsky, Camus, and Sartre. I'm so glad I read it!

I'm not entirely sure how I first came across this book. However, I read it approximately a year ago and I have a strong inclination to read it again someday as I recall thoroughly enjoying it.

The protagonist, Binx Bolling, is approaching his thirtieth birthday and is starting to feel disoriented and confused about reality in general. The people in his life seem to exacerbate his problems, applying pressure on him in various ways. His relative Kate experiences depressive episodes, which deeply concerns him. Meanwhile, his aunt is constantly badgering him about his future. He also has a tendency to go on dates with his secretaries, but these relationships don't really lead anywhere. He has a decent career, yet still feels empty and aimless, floating around, pondering about things and seeking something special in life - what he refers to as treasurable moments. We don't precisely know what he desires, but most people are familiar with that empty, longing sensation that is difficult to put into words, and he has that feeling in abundance.

The plot is rather unusual and challenging to summarize, yet it suits the nature of the book. It's the kind of novel you would appreciate if you enjoy films like Garden State and Beautiful Girls, where the characters are lost and attempting to figure out their lives, nervously adrift in uncertainty.

The entire novel has a peculiar atmosphere, evoking a sense of wistfulness, dreaminess, and a touch of sadness. However, when you finish it, you find yourself longing to revisit its strange, enchanting charm and relive the feeling it imparts, which truly is the strength of this book.

When I was a junior in high school, my favorite English teacher introduced us to Walker Percy.

She told us that he lived across Lake Pontchartrain and described him as a reclusive eccentric. She also mentioned that he had a new book out called Lancelot and highly recommended his Love in the Ruins.

Although we didn't read him in class, I was intrigued by what I heard and decided to read his works on my own. Even though my teacher had introduced me to him, I felt like he was my own discovery.

I don't remember the first time I read his first novel, but I do remember reading it again with a group at a local bookstore in the mid-80s. The moderator of the group, who was also the store owner, said that throughout her reading, she wondered why she was bothering until she reached the end.

I read it again with a small Yahoo group of women in the early 2000s. They had a strong reaction to Aunt Emily's speech near the end. This time, I read it because my daughter had been wanting to read it with me for years. She didn't get a chance to take a New Orleans Lit class at the local university before graduating, and we finally found the opportunity.

Every time I reread a Percy novel, I am struck by his prescience. Maybe it's because nothing much has changed in the world from then to now, and like Binx, Percy was an astute observer. I also appreciated the humor in this novel more this time around, especially its depiction of the exclusive echelon in the Garden District of uptown New Orleans.

Perhaps this book should be rated 4 stars, but I agree with the bookstore owner about the ending. I've said elsewhere that an ending can make a novel for me. There was so much I'd forgotten between this read and the previous one, but not the ending - that I remembered. And then there's that power of discovery...

November 17, 2014

The story of Binx Bolling is a complex and interesting one.

He is a man who has survived the Korean War and now lives a somewhat aimless life in Gentilly, a suburb of New Orleans.

He has a good job as a stock broker but spends most of his spare time going to movies.

As he approaches 30, his family, especially his aunt, believes he needs to make more of his life.

Binx struggles with the idea of the "BIG SEARCH" for something more meaningful, but he is also content with the little things in life, like the moments of bliss he experiences at the movies.

He has a series of relationships with secretaries, but they always end when they want something more from him.

The latest woman in his life is Sharon Kincaid, and he is showing restraint in not asking her out too soon.

However, Binx's true mate may be his cousin by marriage, Kate Cutrer, who has her own issues and fears.

Despite his lack of set ideas, Binx takes the suggestions of others in stride and tries to please everyone.

When offered a promotion, he worries about losing his carefully cultivated life but doesn't consider turning it down.

When his aunt suggests he go to medical school again, he agrees because he doesn't have a better idea of what to do.

Overall, Binx is a character who is trying to find his way in life, and the reader is left to wonder what his future holds.

**Existentialism Down South, Ma'am**

New Orleans is a city that has a complex relationship with the South. It is both closely tied to the region and yet, in a real sense, cut adrift not only from the South but also from the rest of Louisiana. It is a proper American city, and yet within a few hours, the tourist is likely to see more nuns and naked women than he ever saw before. This quote by Walker Percy aptly captures the essence of this city below sea level, affectionately known as The Big Easy.

Walker Percy was awarded the National Book Award for his 1961 novel, which was his first. The novel centers on Binx Bolling, a detached and depressive thirty-year-old stockbroker in 1960 New Orleans. Binx is on a quest for purpose and redemption, which he initially pursues through movies and literature. However, during the week of Mardi Gras, he makes life-altering discoveries. Percy explores ideas of cultural and spiritual alienation with a light lyrical tone, drawing on elements of Dante by paralleling Binx's life to that of the Divine Comedy's narrator.
Binx's aunt asks him to watch over his suicidal female cousin during the Mardi Gras season. Binx describes his life in terms of the aesthetic, religious, and ethical as he searches for meaning and spiritual redemption. He constantly daydreams, cannot maintain sexual relationships, and finds more meaning and urgency in movies and books than in his own humdrum life. As he wanders the streets of the French Quarter and travels along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, he reflects on race and class, providing numerous elegant descriptions of Southern landscapes and an enlightened Southerner's perspective on escaping, for the most part, the legacy of the Old South.
The nature of the search, as Binx puts it, is very simple for a fellow like him. It is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This search for meaning and purpose is at the heart of Percy's novel and is a universal theme that continues to resonate with readers today.